A Seed Saver's Garden

[heirloomgal]

Keep wanting to post pics, but not enough energy left at the end of the day! lol (And no sun...which my device needs.)

But I'm excited enough at today's plant finds that I have enough energy to type! So...given the frosty, wet spring several of my well intentioned seed starting plans fell to the wayside. I didn't want to start a bunch of seed varieties and have no sun or heat which would prevent me from putting them outside - which was exactly what happened. Just too many problems with this years weather. So lots didn't get started. But today at a greenhouse I haven't gone to in many years I found a few gems - some nicely established celeriac plants for one! Been wanting to grow those for awhile and thought this year would be yet another miss. But no! Also some peach coloured double flowering hollyhocks & Osaka ornamental cabbages. Wowee!

Going to rain all weekend but I'm hoping to still get out there and shape the backyard beds in a raincoat. Then I can at least get in the cold tolerant crops like potatoes etc. And the funnest part of all is around the corner, figuring out where everything goes!!! And trying to make it look all pretty!

 

[Pulsegleaner]

One notable event. The one surviving bean plant from the first planting; despite still being very short (shorter, in fact, than any of the second planting,) is already covered with flower buds. Maybe our continued cold, rainy weather is stressing it to the point where it's gone into reproductive mode super early. It still might grow more (if I recall, all of the outcross beans are indeterminate pole), I suppose. Single cowpea plant is still alive as well.

In other news, the first two tomato pots (the yellow wild cherry and the unlabeled one,) are up, but not the third (the other unlabeled one,) So is the red berried nightshade, I think. I also may have one South African rosemary seedling (it a bit too small to see if it's a weed or not.

Rice beans are in spring stasis; they'll start growing when it gets warm. Ditto the guar (if it is guar, again, could be all weeds.)

Nothing from cucumbers yet, or oregano. Or wild peppers, for that matter.

 

[Vanalpaca]

On your sunchokes. Of the varieties you have are any of them consistently larger tubers? I have some red ones to plant off etsy. I want to get some established locally for food foraging if needed. We have 3 herds of deer that might eat the tops, but I'd like to try. Not too sure I can digest the inulin starch. I've read some folks don't do well with it, but I still want to have them growing in our area. We have several woods around us as well as the cow pasture and fencing and roadside ditches so there are places other than my garden compound to establish them....

 

[Anniekay]

This year all that I intend to save seed from in the veg patch are lettuce and chinese celery. Most of the other veg are F1 hybrids so, no sense saving those seed. If any stray tomato plants come up on their own I pull them up but, sometimes, if the plant looks really good and I don't notice it until it gets big, I let it grow just to see what I get.

I will save seed from my annuals and I have a Denver Gaillardia that I really like so, I'll see what I can get from that plant too.

 

[heirloomgal]

On your sunchokes. Of the varieties you have are any of them consistently larger tubers? I have some red ones to plant off etsy. I want to get some established locally for food foraging if needed. We have 3 herds of deer that might eat the tops, but I'd like to try. Not too sure I can digest the inulin starch. I've read some folks don't do well with it, but I still want to have them growing in our area. We have several woods around us as well as the cow pasture and fencing and roadside ditches so there are places other than my garden compound to establish them....

Last year was my first year growing them, and that first variety was about the size of large gingeroots but a bit more knobby. This years new imports seemed to vary, but Skorospelka had a huge tuber that was round and close to the size of a baseball. I was surprised how big it was. It has red skin too.

Yes, some people feel they are a a pretty 'noisy' vegetable. I think this might vary individual to individual the way some people are affected by cabbages and some not so much. I've been a vegetarian for over 30 years so my digestion for any kind of vegetable carb is pretty high. Probably the way other veggies affect you might be indicative of how you'll fare with sunchokes. I do think though we can build up digestive enzymes over time with repeated exposure.

I'd bet that even if wildlife forage on the foliage the tubers will still grow well, they are such an incredibly hardy plant. Even a peanut sized tuber will grow a full yield of tubers.

 

[heirloomgal]

This year all that I intend to save seed from in the veg patch are lettuce and chinese celery. Most of the other veg are F1 hybrids so, no sense saving those seed. If any stray tomato plants come up on their own I pull them up but, sometimes, if the plant looks really good and I don't notice it until it gets big, I let it grow just to see what I get.

I will save seed from my annuals and I have a Denver Gaillardia that I really like so, I'll see what I can get from that plant too.

Saving any kind of seeds is good. It's like soul food!

 

[heirloomgal]

Put my corn starts in today. That felt good, but I don't think I started enough seeds this year. I was rushing because I was late and didn't seed things as I normally would. Oh well, it'll be what it is! Whatever gets eaten will be relished! 'Simonet' this year...

We finally got nice enough weather today to start hardening off the nightshades and misc others. I'll probably have to rush that process a bit this year seeing as it's late and my transplants are too big for their pots already. It's funny how some of the tomatoes are over a foot tall, some 2, but the 'Ojo de Venado' tomato is still only ONE INCH TALL. It perked up from it's near fatal state once I transplanted from the cell pack, but it never grew like the others. I'm going to plunk that little one incher in somewhere and see what it does! Oddest tomato I've ever grown! Hates pots!

And I found a duck egg that got laid in my rhubarb patch!

 

[Decoy1]

Adding my observations to the questions about sunchokes and digestion. I’ve been a vegetarian for over thirty years too, and could happily eat any vegetable until I grew sunchokes. The effect was explosive. I loved the taste of them but the windiness was beyond my tolerance. I reluctantly dig up the two thriving patches I had.

It then took three or four years at least to fully get rid of them. I found them to be thugs in the vegetable garden; they will continue to grow several feet high from the tiniest bit of tuber left in the ground.

A pity as they’re so easy to grow and to cook. The flowers are attractive and the taste is delicious. My experience suggests that they’re ruthless spreaders as well though.

 

[digitS']

sunchokes ... loved the taste of them but the windiness was beyond my tolerance

This was my experience — absolute turbulence in the lower intestine. And yes, the nutty flavor was both wonderful and deceptive.

I found a few gems - some nicely established celeriac plants for one!

Wouldn't be without them .

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

i wonder if it would help to gradually increase them in the diet instead of eating a lot of them all at once?